Lady's choice
by WildeCard
Summary: "You'd forgive your first love anything" Puck may not have been Santana's first love, but at the end of the day she's still his favourite girl. One day she'll need that. Pucktana friendship. Hints at Brittana. Read and review.


_She's a player and a bitch but she's still his best friend, even if he isn't hers._

_Five times Santana kissed Puck, and the one time he kissed Santana. Pucktana friendship with side Brittana, Pisces and Quick._

**1)The first time it happens is the very day they meet for the first time. Puck has just turned 6 that week, while Santana is still a good five and a half months short of her birthday.**

He doesn't know what he thinks of her to be honest, there aren't a lot of girls who look like her; dark skin, even darker hair and a wicked, playful gleam in her eyes that is matched only by the amused smirk on her lips.

Puck may be a badass, but he's still only six years old, and when the bigger, meaner boys (they're 9 and they rule the monkey bars with iron fists) push him down and take his car from him he cries.

It's not that Santana can do anything about his car at this point, it will be another eight years before either of them acquires the reputation that will make them infamous at McKinley, but what she can do is pull him to his feet with a grin that he will associate with her, the real her, more than words like "bitch" or "slut" and help him smear butter onto the monkey bars when the boys who took his car get called in for dinner.

When Puck himself gets called in by his Mother her shrugs awkwardly at the little girl and offers her a gruff thanks. She smirks, stretches up onto her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. She then winks at him and saunters off in a manner that is _very much_ a reflection of the girl she will grow to be. It is at this point that Noah Puckerman first thinks he might love Santana Lopez.

**2)The second time it happens is shortly after Puck's Dad leaves them.** Puck runs away, just for a little while, he's not a deadbeat like his Dad and his little sister needs him, but he needs some time to process this, because the man may have been a total bastard, but he was still his Father, and that's a lot to lose. It is Santana, of course, who finds him on the monkey bars (they rule them now) and leads him to a quiet place in the wooded area of the park where he can cry without anyone else ever knowing. It's there she does it, sje just pushes him into a sitting position, wraps her arms around him and presses her lips to his temple. He doesn't need pity, but everyone knows Santana's parents don't love her like they should, so he lets her comfort him. Santana may know what it feels like to lose a parent, but she knows what it means to be lonely better than anyone he knows.

**3)The third time is in middle school and it happens because Puck is jealous.** He loves Santana, not in a romantic way, but she's his best friend (even if they both need reminding of this occasionally) and he loves her as such. This is why it sucks that there's this ridiculously pretty blonde hanging on to Santana's every word and making _his_ girl look at her with such open adoration that he is very nearly sick. Puck knows the symptoms of first love, and it hurts that, in spite of everything, he wasn't Santana's. It hurts even more that this _Brittany_ loves Santana back just as much.

This is why he pushes Brittany down. He regrets it almost instantly, though whether that's because of the look on Brittany's face (like a kicked puppy) or Santana's (hurt and anger) her doesn't know. What he _does _know is that if you cut one of them they both bleed.

He tells Santana this, and everything else, after school on the monkey bars. Santana just laughs and kisses him on the cheek as her fingers run idly over his newly formed Mohawk. Puck grins and pushes her off the monkey bars. It's okay, he thinks, that Santana isn't _his_ girl because he's still _her_ boy. It might not be the same, but it's there, and Brittany can't touch that.

**4)The fourth time is after Babygate.** It's not a comforting kiss like the one she gave him when his Dad left, nor is it reassuring like the one after he pushed Brittany down. Most surprisingly of all it's not forgiving, and given the fact he was her boyfriend at the time (and so technically cheated on her) the two things he'd expected from her were forgiveness of anger. He gets neither. What he does get is a kiss on the cheek that does the one thing he needs the most at that point; it proves to him that nothing about them has been changed by this. It also makes Puck realise that Santana may have been dating him but her heart was somewhere else. This is also the first time Puck wonders if maybe _he_ ought to be the one forgiving Santana.

**5)The fifth time it happens is after the Lauren thing and it's Santana's way of apologising.** Puck accepts, after all it's just a more overt version of the way her reacted when she met Brittany. He also suspects problems with Brittany to be the cause of the outburst if he's honest; Santana's never had problems with his girls before, and it's been months since they were together so Puck rather suspects that Santana is beginning to realise what he's known all along; that her love for Brittany is a lot more that platonic.

**The one time Puck kisses Santana is, predictably, on the Monkey bars.** What isn't predictable are the tears soaking into his shirt where Santana's head is resting. This time Puck _knows_ it's a Brittany thing. This is why he isn't at all surprised at her admission of lesbianism and, without thinking, presses a kiss to the top of her head. She shifts too look at him shocked, touched and so completely heartbroken that Puck can do nothing except pull her back into his arms and hold her as tightly as possible. He feels her lips tug into a weak smile against his neck and he smiles in response. His kiss, like her fourth, is simply a promise that nothing has changed.


End file.
